Leaving the embassy, the former French head of state also greeted Charles III, proclaimed king on Saturday, who, he thinks, “will have another way of doing things, but who also has a passion that is that of the defense of the environment, of ecology”. It “will be useful in international conferences, that we also hear the voice of the royal family, on this occasion”, when the new British Conservative Prime Minister Liz Truss has taken office.
“We express our immense gratitude”
“To the great friend of France, who throughout her reign sought to strengthen the ties between our two countries and who aroused respect and admiration among French men and women of all generations and of all sensitivities, we express our immense gratitude and share the grief of the royal family and the British people,” he wrote, according to the text consulted by AFP journalists.
Asked when he left about his meeting with Elizabeth II on the occasion of his last state visit to France in 2014, he told how “she had insisted, despite already being tired, to be in France” for the 70th anniversary of the Landing.
During the car journey between the Arc de Triomphe and the Elysée Palace, “I had never seen – and I received many heads of state – such fervor from the French men and women on this avenue Champs-Élysées (…) They were even on the roofs”, he said.
“The combination of austerity but familiarity and elegance”
He also remembered the Republican Guard playing the Beatles to fulfill the queen’s wish, also emphasizing “her taste for French culture and in general for the arts”. “That was the queen”, “this combination of austerity linked to her status, but also of familiarity and elegance”.
She also had “this desire to keep the link between France and the United Kingdom. And beyond what could have separated – from what can always separate us like Brexit – she was there to show us that the link between France and the United Kingdom is indestructible and unwavering,” he said.